5.25 bay cooler and PCI slot cooler for server


Recommended Posts

First off, many thanks again to everyone who's helping me out with the Antec 300 cooling/quieting thread. Still have a few Q's in there but have gotten great advice so far.

Shifting gears a little - I have a server here at the office that's built into a very old case. So far it's run stable, and while its idle temp of 44C seems a bit warm, it never exceeds 46 or so (it's an Opteron, so it's somewhat hardened against thermal fluctuations) but the outside of the case still gets warm to the touch and I was hoping to get some advice on providing better airflow.

Currently it only has one front-mounted 80x80x25mm fan (in a weird plastic bracket that clips on and no standard mounting holes, so I'm limited to 80x80x25 for that) and only the PSU fan for exhaust.

It's acting as a WSUS server, so nothing super-intense that would drive up temperatures, but I'm a little nervous about stabilizing it before I move it from my office to the server room where I can't be there to babysit it.

So, here are my questions:

-I have all 3 5.25" bays unused right now. I know Scythe used to make a Kaze Bay cooler that would add a 120mm fan to 3 bays and provide intake, but that's apparently been discontinued. I found this funky thing by Evercool, and while it boasts up to 100CFM airflow, I'm a little skeptical. On the other hand, even if it can't do 100CFM as advertised, would it still be a substantial improvement over what I've got now, enough to justify the cost?

-On the topic of the Scythe Kaze Bay cooler, has Scythe or anyone else (Noctua or Vantec maybe?) released anything comparable that would work the same way?

-Can anyone recommend a good 80x80x25mm fan to push a bit more air than the one I've already got on there? FrozenCPU (which is becoming my standard go-to resource for cooling, but if anyone has a better site I'm completely open to the idea) had this one which looked good, but I haven't heard of the company so maybe there's a better way to go.

-There's currently a metal grill over the 80mm intake, one of those that's part of the case. I've left it alone thus far, but would it improve airflow to take wire cutters and snip the thing off? I'm no engineer so I'm not certain if the oblong holes actually improve airflow by guiding currents or if the metal just obstructs it. No injury hazard from fan blades, as the whole thing is behind the plastic front plate anyway.

-PCI slot coolers: I hear a lot of talk about using them as intake to blow cool air onto a GPU, but this is running an old GeForce 6600 that, again, is never really going to be taxed. How do PCI slot coolers fare in terms of reducing overall case temperature as exhaust fans, assuming I position it a reasonable distance away from the GPU to allow ambient air to be pulled out by its fans? I don't hear much about using these as general cooling, just as GPU coolers, so I'm hoping someone has a bit of insight on that.

Thanks so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.